When I here the name Khmer Rouge, I get pangs of guilt.

Having been charged with crimes against humanity, the trial of Khmer Rouge [KR] militant Kaing Guek Eav (party nom de guerre ‘comrade’ D[e]uch) is currently taking place in Phnom Penh. 

After the Khmer Rouge gained power in 1975, Deulch, an ambitious party militant was placed in charge of the KR Special Branch and Tuol Sleng prison, a converted high school known under the KR regime as S-21. Deulch has testified at his trial that every prisoner who had the misfortune to enter S21 were assumed guilty, enemies of the party and effectively "already dead".

Deulch has been portrayed in the UK media as a bit player who carried out dastardly crimes out of fear for his own life. This is far from the true picture, he belonged to the second generation of Khmer Rouge leaders, having been educated in the same institution as most of the first wave leadership. On joining the party he was speedily promoted to head the KR Special Security Department, where he learnt his craft of tracking down and tormenting to death ‘enemies of the party.’

After the Vietnamese army went out on a limb and liberated the people of Cambodia from the bloody grip of the Khmer Rouge, ‘Deulch’ returned to the jungle to continue the KR’s obscene war to create a ‘new man’ and the perfect society. He prospered, holding responsible positions within the organization, working as a senior bureaucrat in Pol Pots murderous mini Thiefdom and travelled abroad. 

In 1995, sensing the wind was changing ‘comrade' Deulch found ‘god,’ although the almighty, unlike in the cases of many KR big shots, failed to provide him with immunity from prosecution and did not prevent  Deulch’ finding himself up before the UN beak. 

All well and good some might say, myself included, however whenever I read a newspaper article, or here the name Khmer Rouge, I get pangs of guilt. As I belong to the generation of European leftists who welcomed the victory of the Khmer Rouge over the stooges who had been installed to run Cambodia in the USA's interest.

True I was far from alone in doing so as almost the entire UK and Irish left welcomed Pol Pot and his murderous bunch of thugs. To us they were comrades in the war against US imperialism and I doubt a single one of us foresaw the first act of the new Cambodian government would be to establish S21.

Once the dreadful reality of life under the KR began to leak out, we dismissed it as US and UK State propaganda, that the British and US governments were supporting the KR at the United Nations never seemed to enter our equation. Our mind set was one of group think, we had become 100% caught up in the moment. We had discarded the means of independent thought, our politics were black and white and this left us unable to sort the wheat from the chaff, or admit we should pause before making a judgment as we needed more info. 

This methodology is sadly still with much of the left of today, as to is the unwillingness to debate political differences in a comradely manner. The thought mechanism of those who are not with us, are against us falls far to easily into place. Only this week in a half decent left newspaper I read of “the communist countries of North Korea and China.” Do we really set our bar that low?